we’ve been told time and time again not to judge a book by its cover, simply because the cover doesn’t necessarily reflect its content. i, however, have to admit that i do judge a book by its cover. embarrassingly, i was addicted to the twilight series some four years ago because the black and red cover was rather attractive (at the time anyway). i’ve purchased penguin classics because they come in gorgeous cloth-bound titles. but anyway. my point is that i do judge a book by its cover even though i’m not supposed to.
i can’t remember how i came across love does. it’s probably the result of one of those nights when you surf the net aimlessly and come across various interesting things. come to think of it, it was after i’d finished reading blue like jazz by donald miller (another amazing book, by the way) and mr miller wrote the foreword to love does.
love does has a pretty cover and a even prettier promise. it promises to teach us the secret to living an extraordinary life in an ordinary world. it seems like a huge promise for a book that has balloons on its cover and is only about over a hundred pages thick.
but i’m not a cynic, and i like balloons. and blue skies. and the fact that i can learn to live an extraordinary life in a book.
bob’s a great storyteller. he’s an endearing person whose life is so honestly pored out in his book. he’s such an endearing writer that i feel comfortable calling him “bob”. which is kind of rare. he’s kind of a friend, and i feel like if we met we’d have lots to talk about.
bob is a lawyer who never did well enough on his LSATs to get into law school. instead, he sat outside the dean’s office and won the dean over with his persistence and determination. bob’s a guy who lent a total stranger his lawn just so the guy could propose to his girlfriend in true style (the couple ended up married, yay!).
love does is a collection of stories that have become part of bob’s life. time and time again he demonstrates that love does change things. because love is an olive branch that stretches out, that asks for nothing in return.
and that is bob’s secret to living an extraordinary life in an ordinary world.
i don’t want to spoil the book for you. for someone who judged this book by its cover, i was pleasantly surprised to find that it really resonated with me. like bob said, it was like a tuning fork went twang! in my soul.
it can be a cliche, we’ve all heard that love can change the world, all we need is love. but here’s bob, and he really did change the lives of some people around him. and he was changed by people who truly did love him with an extraordinary love. i think that’s the most powerful story of all, that cliches aren’t mere cliches. they can be reality if we want them to be. if we’re willing to love. (:
p.s. a fangirl moment: i tweeted about how much i enjoyed love does and bob replied to my tweet! if you read this – thank you bob, you made my day. (:
Diane Leow 